A Study in Pigeonhood

Martha the pigeon does not want to be free. 

Today is the same. I wake up, brush my teeth, sneak into Mum’s room, and begin my pigeon heist. Martha’s cage sits on the corner of Mum’s bedside table, right where most people would place a glass of water or last night’s reading material. The route is a tricky one, but I manage to slip through the maze of laundry, sail across the bed-and-dresser canal, and elude being punctured by a stray fork in under a minute. I’m steps away from Martha’s cage when the bed rustles - I freeze, heartbeat thrumming in my skull, until Mum wins her tussle with the sheets and flumps over on her stomach.  

Martha’s beady eyes are on mine, inscrutable in their bird-ness.

I am a glacier, slow and silent in my approach. Warm sweat pricks through my hairline as my fingers wrap around the top of Martha’s cage, and I melt a little - now I’m a river, swift and hushed, salty tributaries slipping down my forehead and onto my hot neck. 

I become human again only once I’m out the door. The front yard is nothing spectacular - a spotty path of semi-balding grass, a rusty red bike lying morosely in a patch of wet dirt - but beyond the rotting fence and dying maple, out between the rows of identically festering houses, are glimpses of tall pines and sprawling green hills. And above them, the sky - so wide and brilliant I’d give anything to suddenly sprout pigeon wings and jet off into the sun. 

Martha, despite being an actual pigeon who is more than capable of realizing my feathered dreams of flight, remains sullenly grounded. Even when I slide the cage door open and heft it into the air, all but shaking her out into the world, she remains unfazed. Not even a squawk. She inspects her matted belly. 

It’s not that she doesn’t know how to fly, or somehow can’t anymore. Within the house, she’s an air missile, a weapon of mass destruction. Open the cage door in the middle of the living room, and she’s smashing plates and stabbing mirrors and dropping excrement on freshly-shampooed heads. But open a window or take her outside, and she gains just as much altitude as a sinking submarine. 

I hold the cage aloft until my shoulders ache, then sigh and gently set her on the ground. My knees groan with morning stiffness as I lower myself next to her. Today I decide to present the bird with my rendition of The Sound of Music soundtrack, hoping to inspire her with glorious imagery of songbird hills and Austrian flora. Martha, however, is nothing if not a practiced critic, ruffling her wings in clear distaste but with no apparent intention of attempting escape. I try harder, let my warbles pitch higher, but gravity’s grip on Martha is unshakeable. 

“Fine,” I grumble. We sit quietly, watching the world bloom towards the sunlight. The hills and Martha and I are alive, and the sun is bubbling up in its pink froth, and the air is wild, wild, wild. 

——

I remember the first time we got Martha. And the second, and the third, and the almost-fatal fourth. She had no problem escaping when no one wanted her to. 

She was a bit of a glut, which was her ultimate downfall. Mum had been planning for pigeon parenthood for weeks, earning the flock’s trust with daily loaves of bread and old fruit each morning at the lakeside park. Martha was the fattest and the slowest, and she followed the breadcrumbs all the way into her tiny metal prison. 

“Why the hell do we need a pigeon?” I’d asked Mum, staring at the possibly diseased creature on our dining table. Martha was even dirtier then, her cries more frantic.

“You said you’re leaving,” Mum grinned. Martha screeched and something runny and white plopped to the bottom of the cage. “This will be a fine replacement.” 

The white goop oozed down one bar and dripped onto the floor. 

“And don’t swear,” Mum turned her black eyes to me. “You know what happens when you swear.” 

Indeed, I knew what happened. 

——

I didn’t end up leaving, obviously. I slipped. Lightning pain. Woozy surgery. It had been a long time - it still hurt, but nothing like before. I sit with Martha and wonder how far the hills are. I ask her what she thinks and she gives me no answer, just like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that one too. 

The floor creaks from somewhere within the depths of the house, and the sweat slithers back down my neck. I’ve taken too long. 

“What are you doing?” Mum’s talons dig into my shoulder. I don’t turn, because I know what her eyes look like. Dark irises, hunting for carrion. 

“Nothing,” I mumble. She yanks me to my feet – my knees – and whirls me around to face her. 

“Are you, darling,” she leans in close, “trying to let Martha go?”

I watch her watch me and shrug. 

She looks at Martha, then at me. She’s old, I realize. I don’t remember her with all these wrinkles, with so much frazzled gray in her hair. Her hand shakes a little on my shoulder.  

“You would try and set her free, wouldn’t you,” she cocks her head, amused. She gives me a sharp tug towards the door, herding me inside. “Another one of your brilliant ideas.” A shove into the kitchen. “Oh my, look at how many dishes there are!”

The kitchen sink is full of gunk-caked plates, magically materialized overnight. A bowl, a small blue one I’d bought because I thought my snack strawberries would look nice in it, is in pieces. I scoop out the sharp shards, one by one, careful not to bloody the drain, and Mum vanishes back into her bedroom.

I plunge my hands into the soapy water and begin scrubbing, letting suds splash high onto my forearms and the edges of the counter. I splatter and lather and fling. My vision goes white, but it’s just a piece of sun slicing into my retinas, gone in a minute and leaving a kaleidoscope memory. 

When I look up out the window, Martha is still there, nestled safely behind her bars.